Welcome back to Vision in the Valley. So I've completed my move and my friend was amazing and holding me down. I won't. I won't digress too long on how stressful moving is for me, but I do want to thank him for holding me down and standing in the gaps where my sons were unable at times to be there.
You know, the importance of a thing is kind of measured by the way we care for them. So it's also true in how we value the things when we move. We take special care to transition a thing or move a thing properly when we care about it. So my clothes and my beauty supplies and my fragrances were packaged and labeled differently from the rest of my things I should say in my shoes, right?
Since you guys know that I'm a shoe person. It's not that I don't value the other things, but I, I put special care into moving these particular things. In fact, I had selected a fragrance along with my makeup and a week's worth of clothes and, you know, shoes and I put it aside and put it in a suitcase just so that I could have easy access to it during this period of time.
complicated move and that the world wouldn't need to know what was going on, but instead they'd see me as I usually present myself. In other words, they wouldn't have to know what was going on in my life unless I told them. And I thought about that. I thought about how I value, how I present myself to the world.
When I get dressed, I'm saying something about how I feel about myself and I'm saying something about my place. I'm saying that I'm intentional and I'm detail oriented, that small things matter to me. In fact, in the past, I've changed my hair so often that sometimes it's hard for people to recognize my face.
I've one of those faces that once I change my hair, I look like a different person. And people often tell me that they knew that it was me because of the style of dress or the sweater that's thrown over my shoulders or my shoes. That's how they are able to identify me. So that says a couple of things to me.
It says that no matter what I change, there's some things that are consistent and that consistency is what people identify me as or recognize me. That's Kwan. So getting dress actually addresses who I am, my self confidence, my creativity, my dependability. But I want to talk about the other part of my wardrobe because I slay more than edges and lashes.
You see what you may not be aware of and I hope that you are Along with beating my face and dressing in power gear and spritzing that that favorite fragrance I'm also putting on the whole armor of god So let me tell you how I located this essential piece of my wardrobe Growing up in Kankakee, my sister and I attended Bible witness camp.
It was an outlet from the life we had, right? And it was my first introduction to the Lord on an intimate basis. In fact, belonging to the camp and later to the church, Ultimately saved my life. The camp offered youth the opportunity to spend the week in the woods, getting closer to nature, but also getting closer to God.
And we didn't buy, our parents didn't buy our way into the experience, but instead we had to learn Bible verses in lieu of pay in order to earn our way Into that experience. So if you're familiar with the Juana clubs, and you know what I'm talking about every week We meet up in our groups We learn the passage the understanding of the passage and then we'd have to commit it So you're hiding the word in your heart.
It becomes a part of your memory bank So you are able to come out and use it in that special time of need. So we learn the passage, discuss the passage, and then we'd have to memorize it. And then later we'd have to test ourselves on the, the actual memory of it and earn points for doing so. It also gave us an opportunity to bond with our peers.
Of the same age group. And in high school, the same thing was true, except that instead, at the end, we didn't earn an overnight camp experience. It was a different kind of experience. So, as we learned passages, a few would stand out to me. The one I've always loved from the very beginning was Ephesians 6 10 through 18, which speaks to getting dressed in God's complete armor.
I loved it because I could visually see myself getting dressed in his protective armor from my head to my toe. Now I tease myself. I, I have a fashion anointing, right? My, my, my friend says that I put things together well. And he said, you know, you really are a fashion bug. Like you love fashion. And I, and I laugh because I, I absolutely do.
And this has been true since I was at least 10 years old. I've always been the one to put colors together that someone else Wouldn't think would work or the shoes that someone else would deem were ugly, but they became my statement piece. And I worked on it. My gear around it. And the next thing you know the same person who would have thought that she was ugly is loving on the shoe and the whole ensemble.
So it's really interesting to me that one of my favorite passages would be this passage, which speaks to putting on the whole armor of God. It's, it speaks to the fact that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
It's Because preparing for a fight or a challenge with another person can, can be handled. We can handle that for the most part. But a spiritual fight, you try to fight in the flesh, is just absolutely pointless. But God gives us instructions on how to prepare for those fights. So we have to get completely dressed.
The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, those feet, you got to put on your, your shoes that's prepared with the gospel of peace, grab your shield of faith and your helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. We have to do this every single day. We get dressed physically, and then we need to have a mental, spiritual, dressing because the whole armor of God covers us in a complete way.
We are not just adorning clothes, but we're covering our spirit. We're protecting ourselves against the enemy that we can't see. So getting dressed in the spirit is, is like getting dressed in the flesh. When we're young, we need help. We don't, we don't know what works well. We don't, we don't know what the essentials are.
But once we learn what the essentials are, we learn how to accessorize, but it takes practice. And so that skill set is something that you'll master. Like you've done every other skill set that you've worked hard at. So soon you'll get dressed with ease. You'll grab your piece like you grab your Chanel fragrance.
And you grab the truth of righteousness like you grab your Gucci or your Jimmy Choo. The only difference is that you can always afford the armor of God and you can never afford to leave home without it. So if we're going up in the spirit like we've been talking about, we're going to come across different warfare.
You're going to need your full armor. Your regular attire just won't do. So when I talk about being recognized, like you may change some things about yourself, your hair is example I had given earlier, but people recognize me because of the style of dress or the, or the shoe or whatever. But I want them to also recognize me for the Christian that I am without knowing me that, you know, Oh, there's something different about her because I'm adorning something extra.
Something that can't be removed because I'm not wearing that particular outfit, but that I am consistent in the way I approach my journey, that I'm putting on the full armor of God. It's not just protective wear for me, right? In my spirit, but it's also an indicator to the next person what I, who I serve, what I represent, the consistency.
Of it all. And because I serve a faithful God, I want to also present myself faithfully and dependably, and I want to be able to say, you recognize me not because of a designer or a hairstyle or even the clothes I choose, but more importantly, because I'm consistently showing up as a Christian longing to see.
the man of Galilee, right? I think it's fantastic that even something like this, the fashion part of literally the fashion part of this is like going back to one of the, the phrases that pastor Hannah talks about all the time, that your gifts will make room for you. And I love it. I believe it. I say my own hashtag is that your gifts go evenly and easily into your assignments.
And then that renders your purpose. So something as easygoing as fashion as easy going as fashion. That means a lot to somebody, or maybe not as much to another, but as represented for me to be able to talk to you about putting on the whole arm of God, I'm always in awe of how the Lord will use anything and anybody to get the glory.
So shout out to the Williams family for loving on us and pouring into us. They've been doing it for years. Mary Williams is very much still at the helm doing exactly that. The entire Williams family, they were just amazing in their serve. And I don't know how many. people, how many generations they've witnessed to, but I know that I am so very thankful because again, it was my first introduction to having an intimate relationship with the Lord.
So shouts out to Bible Witness Camp, Bible Witness Church and the Williams family. So remember the next time you move and you're going to move because we're going from glory to glory. Make sure. To be careful to label and pack what you value. Be very careful not to leave behind the full armor of God and be sure that you put it in a, a suitcase, so to speak, so you'll have easy access.
Now. Go slay. I can't wait to talk to you soon.
